Statement Regarding GP Charlotte Tournament Issues

Hélène Bergeot started her career with Wizards of the Coast in France in December, 1995; afterwards, she spent a few years in the European headquarters based in Belgium and eventually relocated to the Renton office. She is currently the director of organized play and trade marketing.

Beginning at the start of Round 4 of Grand Prix Charlotte, a data corruption issue occurred with Wizards Large Event Tournament Reporter, the tournament software used to run our Grand Prix. As a result, players were paired randomly rather than according to their Swiss records thus far in the tournament.

Star City Games worked with us to attempt to find a fix to the solution, but no workable solution was found until after Round 4. While working on this fix, Star City Games held the tournament for close to three hours at our request, in an attempt to get the Grand Prix back on track. While this allowed us to avoid needing to randomly pair all rounds for the remainder of Day 1, it caused a very large tournament delay, which placed an undue burden on the players and Star City Games.

Wizards of the Coast apologizes to all affected. We would like to thank both Grand Prix Charlotte players and Star City Games staff for their patience and understanding as we worked with them to resolve the issue. We are working with Star City Games to help cover the costs of the free 3-Day Infinite Challenge badges that were offered to all players who dropped from the Main Event today.